Amber-Encased Feathers Tell Colorful Story From Dinosaur Era

A team of scientists from the University of Alberta in Canada have discovered 11 fragments of feathers trapped in fossilized tree resin.
Amber-Encased Feathers Tell Colorful Story From Dinosaur Era
9/22/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/mckellar1HR.jpg" alt="Isolated barb from a vaned feather in a mass of spider webs trapped in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution suggests the bar may have been gray or black. (Science/AAAS)" title="Isolated barb from a vaned feather in a mass of spider webs trapped in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution suggests the bar may have been gray or black. (Science/AAAS)" width="590" class="size-medium wp-image-1797336"/></a>
Isolated barb from a vaned feather in a mass of spider webs trapped in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution suggests the bar may have been gray or black. (Science/AAAS)
A team of scientists from the University of Alberta in Canada have discovered 11 fragments of feathers trapped in fossilized tree resin.

The resin assemblages were recovered by screening over 4,000 amber specimen collections from the university and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.

These unearthed fossils, found in Grassy Lake in southern Alberta, are dated to the late Cretaceous period. Many carbonized feather fossils have been unearthed in the past, but their finer structural details were never as rich as in these amber encapsulated specimens.

“Most of the feather specimens were probably blown into contact with the sticky surface of the resin and encapsulated by subsequent resin flows,” said Ryan McKellar, graduate student and lead researcher, according to an article on the University of Alberta’s website.

One of the most interesting aspects of this amber assemblage is the preservation of pigments within the specimens.

“The amber preserves microscopic detail of the feathers and even their pigment or color,” said McKellar. “I would describe the colors as typically ranging from brown to black.”

A typical feather consists of a central stiff shaft from which soft vanes arise from both sides. The vanes are further divided into smaller structures called barbs and barbules which are tied together by tiny hooklets.

These basic structural patterns are seen well preserved in the fossilized feather specimens.

“The preservation of microscopic detail and pigmentation has provided a unique snapshot of feathers and their uses in the late Cretaceous forests of Alberta,” said McKellar.

The findings about these feathers’ fascinating structural detail are published in the journal Science on Sept. 15.

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/mckellar5HR.jpg" alt="Photomicrograph of coiled barbules in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. The corkscrew-shaped structures are tightly coiled feather barbule bases, which are interrupted where they exit the amber piece, towards the bottom of the image. (Science/AAAS)" title="Photomicrograph of coiled barbules in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. The corkscrew-shaped structures are tightly coiled feather barbule bases, which are interrupted where they exit the amber piece, towards the bottom of the image. (Science/AAAS)" width="590" class="size-medium wp-image-1797338"/></a>
Photomicrograph of coiled barbules in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. The corkscrew-shaped structures are tightly coiled feather barbule bases, which are interrupted where they exit the amber piece, towards the bottom of the image. (Science/AAAS)